Home or Office Security or Alarm Systems have been in existence for a long time. Most existing security systems are made up of a central security controller, door and window sensors, motion detectors, flood detectors, smoke, carbon-monoxide detectors etc. . . . . Lately a healthy mix of new sensors and actuators related to home automation have also been integrated to commercial security systems thus providing collective home automation and security solutions. While the industry and influence of prior art has started showing the integration of security and automation systems, the integration has been more of an afterthought posing limitations on seamless scaling of these systems as new applications evolve. Also despite the many recent advances in this space, the need to productize solutions in a rapidly evolving field has led even recent innovation to build up on existing facets and methodologies. This has led to a void in solving the problem of portability of these systems, which has definitive use cases for wide spectra of users. Alongside portability is the ease of usage and installation which is relevant both when security and automation systems are used in a mobile or fixed context.
Prior art that has made improvements in the portability and installation ease of security systems has done so by means of moving towards wireless systems that can be easily taped to building fixtures like doors, walls etc. However these systems still need an additional device that a user does not normally carry. This additional device serves as a central controller or in lay-person terms, the brain of the system. This aforementioned controller needs to be carried along with its power adapters and sensors, in the event a user needs to move locations. This is especially prohibitive if one was to be traveling or needed only a couple of the sensors to be used in a new temporary location.
Prior art that has suggested the usage of a mobile device, like a cellular phone, as a security controller has not used the cellular phone configured as an IEEE 802.11x or Wireless LAN (WLAN) Access Point (AP). The prior art has additionally not discussed methods that are necessary in realizing portability and simplicity like being able to share security access information without need of external devices, battery conservation etc. In other words, there is a need for a system architecture that requires very few components that the user has to maintain, configure or carry. This needed system despite its simplicity should still be able to serve the security and automation needs of the end user without compromising on the security of communication and of the overall system itself.
Also missing from prior art is an easy and secure solution to discover and enroll new security and automation devices to be a part of the system. Thus, there is a need for a discovery and enrollment process that will not be susceptible to main-in-the-middle type of attacks, and still be simple to execute without needing external input/output (IO) interface devices for entering authentication and configuration information.
Another missing aspect from prior art is a scalable solution to perform long range (line-of-sight approx 100 meters) communications between the controller of the system and its many modules in a simplified manner. The requirement of long range is normally not possible with RF technologies like Bluetooth. Technologies like Zigbee and Z-Wave on the other hand while capable of long range communications fail when scalability, for example in terms of high baud-rate, is needed for applications like a camera.
Another feature needed in prior art that enhances the mobile nature of security systems, is a strategy to conserve battery resources that can be used for different types of security and automation devices. To be able to detect the type of device and accordingly adjust the aggressiveness of battery conservation is an integral part of ensuring that the system can be used in a portable context. A very aggressive battery conservation strategy applied uniformly to all devices could put severe constraints on some use cases. On the other hand, a less aggressive battery conservation strategy applied uniformly to all devices would leave room for further improvement on devices that would allow it.
Commonplace security systems also often use devices and device architectures that are not necessarily amenable to easy installation or portability. Prior art door and window sensors currently in use today are one such example. A common door and window sensor device detects its opening and closing and is made up of two parts. One part of the device contains a reed switch typically installed on the movable part of the door or window whereas the other part of the device is a magnet typically installed on the frame or stationary part of the door or window. The reed switch is an electro-mechanical device that changes its state based on influence of magnetic fields. The reed switch is usually found in the normally-open form which means that the switch is normally off. When a magnet is brought near the reed switch, due to the influence of its magnetic field the filaments of the reed switch get attracted to each other making the switch turn on. This event can be detected by a microcontroller as a door-state-change event. In order for this sensor system to work correctly the reed switch and magnet need to be aligned correctly so that the magnetic field of the magnet can influence the reed switch. Such a device requires careful installation and removal making it inhibitive for portable and casual use.
Even in prior art which relies on MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) as a replacement of the above described reed switch, the art neither gears the system to be portable nor has a sophisticated way of using the device to recognize common patterns to qualify the data produced by the MEMS device. The post processing of MEMS data, though not strictly necessary in all cases, reduces the detection of false positives making the system more robust, which is especially necessary in security applications